Greg Toppo

“Chip was my first journalism teacher—and my best.” He taught me:The importance of working a story hard – harder than I imagined I had to, in my dilettante’s conception. I’ll never forget hid observation that the best stories benefit from what amounts to a huge container of unseen notes, observations, interviews, data and otherwise invisible background material.The importance of being curious. To this day, I tell young reporters that journalism is one of the few jobs where you’re paid to get smarter, and, on occasion, where you’re magically escorted beneath the crime scene tape, past the velvet ropes, behind the curtain.The importance of being fair. I’ve long told colleagues that “objectivity” is a myth, that we’re all biased people and that the best journalism doesn’t shy away from taking a stand. Instead, it demands that we adhere to a higher standard, actually: being complete, honest, accurate and fair. The importance of accepting our subjects as they are. Ss a young reporter, I found it extremely difficult to shake the idea that the people we interview are not like us. It took a while for me to swallow this idea, but it made my interviewing and writing much deeper and certainly much more interesting.The importance of showing up. While I was writing my book, I made a point of sitting down at my computer every morning at 6 a.m., seven days a week, even if I had nothing to write. Some mornings I just looked at old notes or read a chapter in a reference book. But all that showing up eventually got the thing done, on deadline.-GREG TOPPOSenior editor, Inside Higher EdAuthor: The Game Believes in You: How Digital Play Can Make Our Kids SmarterFellow: Poynter Institute Reporting and Writing for Recent College Graduates, 1994

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